Jewish community gets help with traffic signal for safe crossing during Sabbath period

The UK is known for being diverse with many people of all religions and cultures setting up home here. One community that we do not hear from much is the Jewish community who are very private; there are many parts of the UK that have large Jewish communities with most of them in London itself. Friday’s are particularly sacred for Jews as it is Sabbath and as result of this Jews are forbidden to use electricity or operate machinery. In their homes they can adapt and get by without having to break their religious law but when it comes to getting around and crossing the road it can prove a challenge.

One of the busiest roads in London will be getting a new pedestrian crossing that will allow Jews to cross the road without having to push a button. Strict orthodox Jews are not allowed to press the button which enables them to cross the road safely and as there is a large Jewish community in the area, this is proving to be a problem. With much consultation, the go ahead has been given so that they can get a hand free pedestrian crossing that will not break the religious law.

In December traffic will be held every 90 seconds in order for Jews to cross the road. It will start every Friday evening and last until Saturday evening covering the Sabbath duration. There are a lot of road works along the North Circular Road after a huge £8 million upgrade but TfL which is responsible for the maintenance of the UK roads insist that the addition of the 'hands free' crossing has not added further costs to the improvements carried out.

Consultations were carried out before even considering this and it was found that it could be done with minimal disruption. Only when the changes come into place in the next two months will we know for sure how much disruption it will cause as the A406 is nearly always busy.

This will be the first if its kind here in the UK and if it proves to be a success, the same could be rolled out to other Jewish communities such as those in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.